"Yes; let the clay-cold breast that never knew One tender pang to generous Nature true, Half-mingling pity with the gall of scorn, "And ye, proud fair, whose soul no gladness warms, Save Rapture's homage to your conscious charms ! Delighted idols of a gaudy train, Ill can your blunter feelings guess the pain, "Say, then, did pitying Heaven condemn the deed, When Vengeance bade thee, faithless lover! bleed? Long had I watch'd thy dark foreboding brow, What time thy bosom scorn'd its dearest vow! "Oh! righteous Heaven! 'twas then my tortured soul First gave to wrath unlimited controul ! Adieu the silent look! the streaming eye! The murmur'd plaint! the deep heart-heaving sigh! Long-slumbering Vengeance wakes to better deeds; He shrieks, he falls, the perjured lover bleeds! Now the last laugh of agony is o'er, And pale in blood he sleeps, to wake no more! THE WOUNDED HUSSAR. ALONE to the banks of the dark-rolling Danube Fair Adelaide hied when the battle was o'er. Oh whither, she cried, hast thou wander'd, my lover, Or here dost thou welter and bleed on the shore? What voice did I hear ? 'twas my Henry that sigh'd, All mournful she hasten'd, nor wander'd she far, When bleeding, and low, on the heath she descried, By the light of the moon, her poor wounded hussar! From his bosom that heav'd, the last torrent was streaming, And pale was his visage, deep mark'd with a scar! And dim was that eye, once expressively beaming, That melted in love, and that kindled in war! How smit was poor Adelaide's heart at the sight! How bitter she wept o'er the victim of war! Hast thou come, my fond Love, this last sorrowful night, To cheer the lone heart of your wounded Hussar? Thou shalt live, she replied, Heaven's mercy relieving Each anguishing wound, shall forbid me to mourn! Ah, no! the last pang of my bosom is heaving! No light of the morn shall to Henry return! |